Yilun Wu

​Yilun Wu is focusing on developing lipid-coated calcium phosphate/carbonate (LCCP) nanoparticles (NPs) for effective siRNA delivery in melanoma immunotherapy by silencing PD-L1 gene. Queensland State, “the capital of melanoma”, has the highest prevalence of melanoma around the world. Conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy can cause side effects. So finding an efficient treatment for late stage melanoma is of great importance, where immunotherapy is one of the promising approaches. To overcome tumour tolerance to the immune system, one effective approach is to suppress the Programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) with siRNA. Herein, LCCP NPs are designed as novel siRNA delivery platforms for knockdown of PD-L1 gene, as well as switch-off of upstream genes. Successfully completing this project may provide a novel nanoparticle-based siRNA delivery approach for melanoma immunotherapy.